365 Urban Species. #324: Callery Pear

[urbpan]

Photos by urbpan. The last tree with leaves still on it is a callery pear, which I noticed while I was driving down route 9.

Urban species #234: Callery pear Pyrus calleryana

The sugar maples have long dropped their leaves, the red maples' "October glory" has faded; even most of the oak trees have shed their foliage. But a line of street trees stubbornly hangs on, each tree bearing shiny, heart-shaped leaves, mostly green at the bottom, blazing to yellow and red toward the top. I was aware of these trees but despaired in ignorance of their identity. Then a group of us went to the Mount Auburn cemetery, where the exquisite landscaping is carefully composed and each tree bears an identification tag. We saw one of these trees, its leaves still multicolored in a sea of bare wooden skeletons, and rushed to read its tag.

The callery pear is a cultivated variety of a tree native to China. Along with its foliage, colorful and persisting into late fall, it is valued for its profuse blossoms, similar to those produced by trees in the same family: roses, cherries, and apples. It also resists most of the stresses of urban living, such as root compression and pollution. However, it is vulnerable to storm damage, and many of the individuals I've examined show scars from limbs having broken off in the wind. The most surprising thing about this pear tree is its fruit--by definition they are pears, but they are tiny round berries. They aren't brightly colored, or much favored by wildlife (though birds and squirrels will eat them), and a fruitless cultivar of the tree called "Bradford pear" is often planted. Many landscapers consider the callery pear to be overused.



Location: Aspinwall Ave, Brookline.




Callery pears line both sides of Aspinwall avenue in Brookline.


The varied foliage and small fruit of the tree.


I found them to be mealy and astringent, or soft and fermented.

Comments

[tsunami-ryuu.livejournal.com]

Ahh! Callery and bradford pears. There's a callery/capital pear tree abutting the street in front of my house. Its foliage is lovely-- right now it's the only tree on the block still holding onto its yellow leaves; the rest of the boulevard trees are maples and have long since dropped their leaves. However, the blossoms in spring... ugh! They're ubiquitous and pretty, but they smell like a dead, rotting animal. So I tend to hate parking the car by the tree because I have to walk through a wall of that smell to get to the house.